‘“A Lesson for this Sunday’ and ‘Birdshooting Season’ explore people’s reactions to hunting experiences.

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Write an essay in which you describe the hunting experience in each poem. In this essay, you must also discuss how
a person in EACH poem feels about the creature being hunted, and examine ONE device that is used to present the
hunting experience in EACH poem. [35]

NOTES: Describe - This means you need to provide a detailed account, including significant characteristics or traits of
the issue in question. (CSEC English Syllabus Page 89)

Discuss - This means you need to provide an extended answer exploring related concepts and issues using detailed
examples but not necessarily drawing a conclusion.  (CSEC English Syllabus Page 89)

Examine - This means you need to inspect the textual details carefully. In other words, you need to interrogate the
text.

Device - This refers to a technique the poet uses to produce a particular effect in the poem. These devices help to
make the meaning clearer to the reader and assist in their interpretation and analysis of the poem.

Sample Essay

The hunting experiences in ‘A Lesson for this Sunday’ and ‘Birdshooting Season’ are presented in interestingly
different ways. In Walcott’s poem, an adult who is resting in a hammock observes an actual hunting moment that
involves two children. In ‘Birdshooting Season’ however, the young narrator observes communal preparation for a
hunt and reflects on the children’s response to the hunt and possible hunting outcomes.

In ‘A Lesson for this Sunday’, two small children, a brother and sister, find interest in hunting flying creatures with
yellow wings on a beautiful summer day. They pursue their prey, a praying mantis, and are successful in blinding one
of its eyes and in maiming it, ‘The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.’ The actions of the siblings appear serious and
methodical as they proceed toward disembowelling the creature’s abdomen.

The relentless actions of the small girl are focused on in ‘A Lesson for this Sunday’. She is eager and determined to
have control over the creature as seen in the line, ‘She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.’ An adult maid intervenes
and stops the children from their hunt. The girl however screams as the maimed praying mantis attempts its wobbly
escape. As the narrator observes the cruel hunting incident, he reflects on the ‘heredity of cruelty’ that is a natural
course among humans, possibly passed on from generation to generation.  The narrator is reflective as well as
empathetic in his response to the incident. This is seen in his use of the words ‘sin’, ‘nausea’ and ‘heredity of cruelty’.
It is also seen in his description the injured mantis as ‘the maimed, teetering thing’.

One literary device employed by Walcott in presenting the hunting experience is irony. It is ironic that the small
female child, described as ‘a thing of summery light/frail as a flower…’ can be so cruel. She is young, tender and
beautiful yet she has a large capacity for violence against the natural creature (praying mantis). It is ironic also that
she attempts to disembowel the mantis while it prays, almost as if for her forgiveness. Her eagerness and excitement
is audible in her shrieks and screams.

Olive Senior’s poem, ‘Birdshooting Season’, focuses on the gathering of men the night before an imminent hunt.
While the men prepare their guns and bolster themselves by drinking white rum, their women prepare food and hot
drinks for the men’s early exit. In the darkness of early morning, the hunters leave for their mission carrying their
refreshments and their guns.

The young narrator in the poem observes the hunting preparation since it occurs at his/her home, ‘My father’s
house turns macho.’ As the hunters exit the house, the narrator and other young children feel shivers. Their
‘shivering’ is of two kinds: the male children shiver in possible excitement of one day being allowed to be on the
hunt with the men while the little girls shiver in fear of the birds being killed. This is seen in the girls’ whispering of
‘Fly Birds Fly.’

One literary device employed by Olive Senior in presenting the pre-hunting experience is the metaphor. An example
of this is, ‘Birdshooting season the men make marriages with their guns.’ This is a vivid image of the importance of
the guns to the hunters. Their intimate interest in the hunt is seen in the comparison of the guns with marriage
mates/wives. The idea of intimacy and focused attention comes to mind but in this case, it is the weapons that’s the
men are closer to, rather than their wives. This idea is continued in the image of the women as ‘contentless’ while
working during the night to prepare the food and hot drinks for their husband hunters. The wives lack happiness
since their men have no time for them. It is the gun and the hunt that are prioritized.

In conclusion, I certainly agree with the statement that “‘A Lesson for this Sunday’ and ‘Birdshooting Season’ explore
people’s reactions to hunting experiences.” In both poems hunting is linked with the idea of a hobby or sport. In the
former, it’s butterfly/mantis collection and in the latter, it’s the sport of hunting birds.